CHAPTER 22The first stunning shock was over. The dreadful routine which waits on murder ran its accustomed course. Police surgeon, fingerprint expert, official photographer played their parts and went away. Finally, all that was left of Tanis Lyle went away too, in an ambulance.
The Superintendent from Ledlington, Randal March, sat in Miss Fane’s study checking over the statements which he and Sergeant Stebbins had been taking. He was a tall, good-looking man in his middle thirties, with a pleasant cultivated voice and a manner in which authority was agreeably veiled. The eyes, the line of the jaw, the set of the head, asserted its presence, but the pleasant veil was there—for as long as he desired it to remain.
Miss Maud Silver, entering the room, was very warmly received. She addressed
